Smallville's Rosenbaum Wants to Be Lex Luthor Again in James Gunn's DCU
Things took an unexpected turn for the DC Universe recently, as DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn announced a new Superman movie in the works last week.
While most fans expected Henry Cavill to return as Superman after his cameo in Black Adam, Gunn confirmed that the new movie will not feature Cavill.
Gunn himself is working on the script, though probably he won't be directing. And the stated reason why Cavill's superman won't be used is the movie focusing on young Clark Kent, in the beginning of his career as a Daily Planet reporter and superhero. But, confusingly, the movie is not supposed to be another origin story.
In any case, the question of casting is open for now, which resulted in fan speculations and attempts to pick their own candidates, both for Superman, and for his obvious nemesis in this setup, Lex Luthor. One popular fan candidate for Luthor's role was Michael Rooker.
Then Michael Rosenbaum, who played Lex Luthor throughout seven seasons of Smallville, probably the best-known of DC TV series, or at least one of the best-known, chimed in on Twitter.
"I hope I'd be in the running. :) I mean I did play him for 7 years. Unless you guys would have a problem with that. :)))) "
While Rosenbaum's fans enthusiastically supported the notion on his Twitter (of course), it remains to be seen how realistic this idea actually is. Yes, playing Luthor again may be seen as the logical evolution of Rosenbaum performance, from Luthor at the beginning of his career as an evil mastermind, gradually accumulating power and status at the expense of his morals, to the character's version who is older and starts as a ruler of his business empire.
But on the other hand Gunn wants a younger Superman, and so Rosenbaum's Luthor may be too old to make a good villainous match for this version of his eternal opponent.
In any case, while for now we know almost nothing about Gunn's reboot, we should note Gunn and Rosenbaum are friends. They've worked together before, including on the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. So that's another reason why Rosenbaum's candidature might at least be considered – the first reason being his much-acclaimed performance on Smallville.